Media Contact: Grace Nicolette, Vice President, Programming and External Relations: 617-492-0800 x236
Cambridge, MA — The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) has elected Upstream USA Co-founder Mark Edwards to its Board of Directors. Edwards will begin serving a three-year term beginning July 1, 2018.
“Mark Edwards is an evidence-driven and visionary nonprofit leader who also understands the need to inspire others in order to provoke needed change,” said CEP President Phil Buchanan. “As someone leading a path-breaking and rapidly expanding nonprofit, he will bring a crucial perspective on how funders can better work with nonprofits to achieve shared goals. I have known Mark professionally for more than two decades and am thrilled he will be a part of CEP’s future.”
Upstream USA, the organization Edwards co-founded in 2014, works to expand opportunity and mobility by reducing unplanned pregnancy in the U.S. Upstream partners with states to provide sustainable training and technical assistance to health centers so that all women have access to the full range of contraceptive methods, including IUDs and implants. Upstream’s approach empowers women to decide when and if they want to become pregnant, improving economic and health outcomes for parents, children, and society.
Edwards is a frequent speaker and commentator on the intersection of upward mobility and reproductive health care, and his work and perspective have been featured in a number of media outlets, including The New York Times, Vox, New York Magazine, and Politico, among others. Prior to co-founding Upstream, he was the founder and executive director of Opportunity Nation, a national bipartisan campaign made up of 300 national nonprofits focused on expanding economic mobility through bipartisan federal policy reform. A Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur and Ashoka Fellow, Edwards has also served on the boards of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Horizons for Homeless Children, among other nonprofit boards and advisory committees. He is a graduate of Harvard College.
Edwards joins a Board that includes: Chair Grant Oliphant (President, the Heinz Endowments), Paul Beaudet (Executive Director, Wilburforce Foundation), Phil Buchanan (ex officio, President, CEP), Kathleen Cravero (President, Oak Foundation), Tiffany Cooper Gueye (former CEO, BELL, Building Educated Leaders for Life), Richard Ober (President and CEO, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation), Hilary Pennington (Executive Vice President for Program, Ford Foundation), Christy Pichel (former President, Stuart Foundation), Vince Stehle (Executive Director, Media Impact Funders), Kelvin Taketa (Senior Fellow, Hawai’i Community Foundation), Fay Twersky (Director of the Effective Philanthropy Group, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation), and Lynn Perry Wooten (J. Nolan Dean and Professor of Management and Organizations, Cornell University’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management).
About the Center for Effective Philanthropy
The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to provide data and create insight so philanthropic funders can better define, assess, and improve their effectiveness and impact. CEP received initial funding in 2001 and has offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California. For more information on CEP’s work, including its research, programming, and assessment and advisory services, see www.cep.org.
